From a Tractor Test Farm to a Lawyers' Village
In 1917, the International Harvester Company purchased 414 acres of farmland southwest of Chicago for an experimental farm. It's where they tested the world's first all-purpose tractor — the Farmall — and where they refined the agricultural equipment that would mechanize American farming for the next 50 years. The land was so identified with the company that when residents incorporated as a village in 1956, they called it Harvester.
Five years later, in 1961, International Harvester merged with Burr Ridge Estates — a 190-acre former dairy farm with five-acre home sites. The community renamed itself Burr Ridge. The prison farm site (the old Cook County Bridewell Farm) eventually became Ambriance, a gated subdivision of multimillion-dollar homes. The Four Pines Farm gave way to Carriage Way. Valley View, once owned by a Chicago industrialist and later by the Boy Scouts, became the Burr Ridge Club.
What was farmland in 1917 is now 11,192 residents with a median family income of $204,000 — 1.5 times the regional rate. 67% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. The median age is 56.9, which means this is a community of established professionals, not young families. Five corporate parks operate within the village limits, and proximity to I-294 and I-55 — the Tri-State and the Stevenson — places Burr Ridge within 35 minutes of either airport and the Loop.
Lincoln Limo Inc serves Burr Ridge because Burr Ridge runs on a transportation rhythm most rideshare apps cannot match: the same driver every booking, on a standing reservation, in a vehicle worth the wait. The 2025 Escalade ESV Platinum Sport Executive turns the 35-minute O'Hare drive into the most productive part of the morning. By reservation. Surge pricing never used.